Work is picking up for a lot of people. Schedules are filling fast. Things are already in full-swing for many of us. Are you tired of working long hours yet? Do your summers fly by? Come fall, do you wonder where the time went? Summer doesn’t officially start until June 21 and burning ourselves out too soon will inevitably put us on a path of no good. Next thing you’ll be saying is, “I need to hire more help.” You may already be in that situation.

Efficiency helps you overcome and prevent problems

Sure, I’ve posted thousands of painting tips over the years on how to be efficient, but that’s not going to help anyone if we don’t know how to put them to good use during the day. That would be like putting a puzzle together with blank pieces. We would need to try each piece to see if it fits. With no picture or colors to guide us, it would take more time, but we could do it.

Our goal is to be productive, not counterproductive. It is important to know how the pieces fit the big picture. So, we need a plan. Let’s lay one out now. Grab a pencil and paper and write down this one thing and stick it in your tool bag. I want it to be on your mind throughout the day. Tape it to the dashboard, tape it on the refrigerator, tape it in the shop. We’ll never be effective focusing or being productive if we don’t figure out…

“What is wasting my time?”

We cannot move forward without first identifying things wasting our time or distracting us throughout the day. Once that part is accomplished, then we have a choice to engage in it, or avoid it. It is the same kind of thing when we hop in the truck knowing the route we typically take is full of construction, and traffic is backed up. We know of an alternate route, but habit and familiarity will sometimes take us straight into construction (the longest route). “Why did I go this way?” “Why did I paint it that way?”

We are taught not to text and drive because it distracts us from focusing on traffic and our surroundings. When we hop in the car, we have a goal. Our goal is to get from Point A to Point B in one piece. Distractions put us at risk of reaching our goal.

Here are 7 things to help you stay focused and productive at work.

1. Identify production killers. We need to figure out what is consuming our time throughout the day. If what you’re doing isn’t producing a return on the investment of your time, it’s a production killer. Make a note of it, and stop doing it immediately.2. Identify distractions. We need to stay focused so we need to come to terms with what distracts us throughout the day and put a stop to it.3. Take control of yourself, your employees, and take control of the job. You are the boss. Be the boss! Only you say what goes. If you have employees not working up to your standards, take control of it. Explain how you want it done.4. Start time consuming tasks first. What requires multiple coats? What will take the longest time to dry? What needs primer immediately so its dry later? Map it out the day before how tomorrow will play out. We don’t need to sit down and write out a step-by-step item for item list. We only need to start with a general understanding of what we plan on doing tomorrow.5. Take a break. Eat a snack. Sit down. For me, I take pictures of work in progress and hop on Facebook for a few minutes.6. Stay focused when you’re working, (remove things) that get in the way of getting your job done. Stage the job site to work best for you.7. If there is something absolutely pressing going on during the day, enable Airplane mode until whatever is done. Interruptions are production killers!

These 7 things will get you on track to being more productive at work and help you focus on the important things. Speaking of important things, we can all learn a valuable lesson in production from watching this video by planning ahead of time to prevent setbacks, distractions, and things getting in the way of getting our job done.

The video was removed by the publisher.

Need help identifying production killers? Start by searching the site then head over to Facebook for more.